Mexican police clash with protesters

OAXACA, Mexico -- Backed by water cannons, bulldozers, and helicopters, federal riot police launched a major operation yesterday, retaking the city of Oaxaca last night from a leftist alliance that has controlled it for months.

Police officers dressed in body armor and in some cases carrying assault rifles moved in from several points around the city to the central plaza -- the symbolic headquarters of the so-called Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, or APPO.

APPO leaders called on residents to take to the streets to resist the operation, but urged them to avoid violence for fear of triggering a bloodbath. The leadership said one 15-year-old activist had died and about 50 others had been arrested.

While most of the protesters followed the directive of non violence during the day, some groups used rocks and burning tires to attack police. As darkness fell a tense standoff developed at several of the narrow entrances to the plaza, known around the world for its elegant colonial architecture, laid-back atmosphere, and colorful indigenous Indian markets.

Most tourists were scared away as protests that began in May as a dispute over teachers' pay and work conditions were transformed into a social revolt that claimed the lives of several demonstrators. The protesters' main demand now is the removal of the governor of Oaxaca state, Ulíses Ruíz, whose own Late in the evening, the square emptied of demonstrators, and riot police took control of the area. Some activists said they were tactically retreating to avoid confrontation, but would be back today with non violent marches aimed at forcing police out.

Interviewed on Televisa television news network, Mexico's interior minister, Carlos Abascal, called the police operation as "a success." The minister, however, also described the current situation as "a tense calm."

As the police pushed forward step by step earlier yesterday from the end of the main highway out of the city , demonstrators shouted their fury and chanted slogans, including the classic Latin American mantra, "The people united will never be defeated."

At some points, demonstrators managed to push back the wall of riot shields a few inches, but overall they were unable to slow the advance through dozens of barricades ranging from a few rocks and burning tires to large trucks left blocking the road.

In another part of the city, police traveling in buses put their shields up against the windows as stones and rocks thrown by APPO supporters broke most of the windows.

In one of the many narrow streets leading into the main square, hundreds of riot police faced protesters wielding metal bars and singing the national anthem. In the square, the smell of gasoline wafted from a Molotov cocktail assembly station, and the air was heavy with smoke from burning vehicles in surrounding streets.

Organized into a loose coalition of unions, residents' associations, and indigenous and student groups, the APPO ranges from relatively timid reformers to, some members admit, representatives of the small armed guerrilla groups active in the state.

The APPO accuses Ruíz of everything from electoral fraud to murder, saying he is responsible for the deaths of 14 people since the occupation begun, several killed at the barricades at night by paramilitary-style drive-by shootings.

For the first few months, the federal government of President Vicente Fox stayed out of the Oaxaca conflict, saying it was a local matter.

When the problem failed to go away, the Interior Ministry sponsored talks that led to a deal with leaders of the teachers' group. In the first sign that a peaceful end to the conflict might be possible, a majority of the teachers voted last week to go back to work.

Then a day of intense violence around the city Friday left two protestors dead. Also killed was Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York, an American activist journalist sympathetic to their cause who was shot twice in the chest as he filmed an attack by armed men on one of the barricades.

A national newspaper later identified the gunmen as police in civilian clothes. Another showed protesters shooting back.

On Saturday morning the federal government ordered their forces to Oaxaca.

Some protesters said that even if police manage to take control of the city, their protest would continue.

The police "can get in, but that does not mean they will get out," said Mariana Sanchez, 23, a dentistry student. "The people will surround them, and they will be the ones under siege. We, the people of Oaxaca, will defend our dignity."

The contention that all of Oaxaca is in favor of the movement is belied by the many residents frustrated by the closed schools and the occupation that has devastated the local economy. Others balk at what they see as anarchy taking hold, exemplified by the instances of popular justice in which alleged thieves have been beaten and tied to lampposts with signs hung around their necks.

Still, the APPO also has significant support among residents who see their radicalism as the only way to push out a governor they view as a symbol of corrupt and authoritarian politics.

And even as they were being pushed back, some protesters talked yesterday evening as though they were the ones advancing.

"We are losing, but we are also winning," said Uriel Mendoza, 28, a teacher. "This movement has united us in a struggle to change the system. It has opened our eyes, and we are not going to close them again."